If someone was to try to use their interface, they would have been met with difficulties.
“I think at this time everyone knows that on Earth my name is Austin Zane, CEO of Rock Breakers,” Dave said, his voice calm.
Cassie’s eyebrows rose. As she looked to the others, they didn’t show any shock but rather nods of confirmation. She looked back to Dave as if seeing him in a whole new light.
“You might also be wondering how the hell I have so much time to play this game and be an E-head.” Dave smiled. “The simple way of putting it is I’m not an E-head.”
“You’ve got some kind of remote tech?” Esa asked.
“No, I’m not using any tech at all. My avatar of Austin Zane is being run by AIs so that Earth’s economy doesn’t just collapse. Everything that you think was your life on Earth is a lie, a simulation to make you want to play video games, to play Emerilia and fight for a race that nearly exterminated humanity and now uses us for entertainment and to deal with the races that threaten them,” Dave said.
Dwayne snorted and shook his head.
“Bit farfetched to troll me.” Dwayne looked to the other faces in the room. A sliver of doubt crossed his eyes as he saw not only did Party Zero look as though they accepted this fact, but Jules’s and Lucy’s eyes were also steady, looking at the four others.
A Gnome appeared in the room with a flash of light.
“Dave?” Bob asked.
“I think it’s time that these four finally learned the truth,” Dave said, a sad smile on his face as he looked to the four looks of disbelief.
“I have one question. If you were to log off, then why would you be greeted by a Gnome that is supposed to only be in the game?” Dave asked.
***
An hour later, the four disbelieving faces were ashen as they looked at the others in the room.
Josh’s hand shook as he ran it through his hair and let out a nervous laugh.
Bob had visited each and every one of them on Earth; he had even brought them together and dropped them off in their houses. There was no interface—nothing to indicate they were in a simulation. Yet it shouldn’t have been possible.
Their beliefs were shaken as they returned to Emerilia.
Party Zero, as well as Jules and Lucy, told them the story of the Jukal, of the Human race. It had left them shaken in more ways than one.
“How?” Josh said.
“The people of Emerilia are real.” Dwayne looked as if his whole world was coming down. “I was never actually disabled in combat—that was a situation that they made up so that I would come to video games to get away from it all.”
“Precisely,” Dave said, a note of sadness in his voice but also understanding.
“This is massive. And as much as I understand that you telling us shows that you trust us a whole hell of a lot, why would you?” Cassie asked.
“With this war, a lot of things are going to change. If we survive it—hell, even if we do well—we could become some of the most powerful people on Emerilia. Strong enough that we could rally others to us,” Dave said.
“We might be able to rally them to us, but the Jukal have to have a way to deal with us,” Dwayne said.
“Yes, each and every Player has a kill switch in them—it’s part of our bodies. There are also orbital satellites that can drop missiles and kinetic warheads on us. Then there is also the moon base that is filled with automated robots and weapons that could wipe us out many times over,” Lucy said.
“There are also the ships that are always orbiting Emerilia. While we should be able to not worry about the Datskun carrier, the others have more than enough power to sit above us and drop rocks on the different continents, dropping us into an ice age,” Dave reminded her.
“So, what the hell are we going to do? Even with all this info, we don’t have ships. We don’t have weapons that can fight them!” Kim said.
Dave tapped his fingers on the desk. “Well, that isn’t necessarily true.”
Now everyone except Malsour and Steve’s eyes were fixed on Dave.
“Dave, what have you been working on?” Deia asked, as if learning about another one of his creations that he seemed to come up with on the fly.
“Insurance. Basically, if we win this war and we can fight everything off, then we don’t know how the Jukal are going to react. If we have to employ weapons that should not be on Emerilia, then things are going to get dicey and we’ll have to strike out. If not, then we can bide our time, grow our strength more and then move on them first. To do that, we need resources and items that can fight them in space or allow us to survive on Emerilia. Terra is one of those projects. So are my other ideas,” Dave said.
“What about Terra?” Josh asked.
“Well, it’s more than just a city. It’s meant to be a shelter in case anything goes wrong and we need to hide from the surface of Emerilia, which we shouldn’t need to as I’ve looked into protecting it. Basically, I’ve been working on the defenses of Emerilia as well as tools that will allow us to strike out at them,” Dave said.
“What’s your plan?” Dwayne’s playful tone from just a few minutes ago was gone. Instead, they were seeing the side of Dwayne that had been hardened in the flames of war and asked to go back into it time and time again.
“Plan? I don’t have one for what the hell we’re going to do, though, I do have resources and tech that we can use that will allow us an advantage,” Dave said.
“What is the point of bringing this to us?” Josh asked.
“For a couple of reasons. One, because if you know now, then you can plan for what is going to come. Also you can start to understand that while you like POEs, that they truly are real,” Dave said.
“Deia, you’re really pregnant?” Cassie asked suddenly, cutting off Dave.
“Yes.” Deia smiled and rested her hand on her large belly as she looked from Cassie to Dave. The two of them smiled at each other before Dave looked back to Josh.
“Also, it can give you a kick in the pants to push everyone forward. The event has been a great motivator for people. Having this nestled in the back of your mind, how hard are you going to push people to train and do better?” Dave asked.
Silence filled the room.
“Okay, so what resources do we have?” Dwayne asked again.
“Showing is better than telling.” Dave looked upward. “Shard, could you cover for us?”
“Anti-detection protocols in effect,” Shard said in a serious tone from above.
“You might want to stand,” Dave said.
“What’s going on?” Josh asked.
“Trust me.” Dave smiled.
Josh sighed. “You and your bloody riddles.” Even as he complained, he stood up from his chair and everyone else followed suit.
Orbs appeared around Dave, flashing out in eight different directions. A spell formation flashed between the orbs as Dave closed his eyes. With a surge of power, they disappeared from the conference room. In their absence, Shard started running a program that he, Dave, Malsour, Bob, and Steve had come up to fool any possible sensors the Jukal were using to get inside Terra.
Already the city was covered in complicated sensor- and transmission-killing runes, but Dave was an overly cautious man and he had only become more paranoid with the Jukal.
They appeared within the secret laboratory’s gravitational and teleport room. The runes on Dave’s orbs dimmed as the spell formation between them collapsed. They returned to their master and disappeared.
“This is where we’ve been working on our different projects, though I think you’ll be more interested in seeing the main yard.” Dave checked the different settings on the command console to the side of the room.
“You mastered teleportation magic?” Anna asked.
“Well, kind of.” Dave waved his hand side to side.
“When moving a lot of people, he still needs a grounding point to go to and from. This is his own custom one. Only he and Bob can teleport to he
re; anyone else would find themselves stuck in the ground around us,” Malsour said.
“Looks like Kol is already down there.” Dave pressed a command. The room lit up with power, and the runes lit up in sequence before a portal appeared within the middle of the room.
On the other side there were carts waiting.
Dave stepped through; the others followed, finding themselves in a large hallway. After everyone had come through, the portal closed.
“Welcome to Facility One, or as I like to call it, Black Hole,” Dave said.
Around him, lights all started to come online, showing a massive hallway. Automated carts moved up and down it with storage chests in their beds.
“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Dwayne commented as Dave sat on the cart and waved for the others to join him.
“Well, I needed some way to refer to it if we’re talking about it somewhere less secure. In here, the runes and coding have the same strength as the ones in the lab,” Dave said as everyone got on the waiting carts and they took off.
“How large is this place?” Josh asked in wonder.
“About ten times the size of the current Terra,” Dave said.
“How the hell did you make it?” Lucy asked. It was also her first time finding out about this place.
“Well, after building the miner drill factory, I made a few extra, provided them with materials and power, then sent them on their way. I supplied the place with power through the teleportation array that we just came through, as well as materials that I gained from Bob. I got the first bay cut out and started up a refinery in the belly of the first Ark prototype. Then I had the repair bots work on making fusion reactors. After that, this place became pretty much self-sufficient.”
Behind them, the teleportation array flashed as automated carts of materials came through the portal.
“Where are those materials coming from?” Lucy asked.
“Well, I think that should be the first shipment of parts from Frenik,” Dave said.
“For what?” Dwayne asked.
“Not one for surprises, are you?” Dave grinned. “Frenik has been making the components we’ll need for the missile systems that are in bay three. He is also working on items called Band-Aids. Essentially these are devices that strengthen a person’s aura so that the Jukal kill switch won’t work. However, they aren’t a permanent solution. We’re hoping that with the Band-Aids we can get enough information on the kill switches so that we can come up with a way to destroy or remove them. He’s also making components for the varying systems that are part of the Arks. The Arks are space-based warships, or at least they will be if I can get all of the small issues dealt with.” Dave frowned.
“You’re building missiles and warships?” Josh asked, a little shocked by everything.
“Yep, missiles to take out the orbitals and anything else that tries to hit us from the skies. Then warships so that we can take the fight to whoever wants to screw with us,” Dave said.
“However, right now, the fighters and warships aren’t much more than shells. As Dave said, their main systems aren’t all ready so we’re waiting for other people to solve the issues that we’ve found with them,” Malsour said.
“How?” Kim asked.
“Mirror of Communication coding school, through the smithies, the factories, the Dwarven Master Smiths. I had Shard and Steve break up the different components and systems we would need, based off the information Anna, Bob, and Jeeves have on the ships that make up the Jukal fleets and the Human warships of the past,” Dave said.
“As you said, it’s been centuries since the Jukal fought humanity. How is using the old Human warship designs going to help us?” Dwayne asked.
“The Jukal aren’t all that inventive. They have a craftsman economy. They make things to last, not to be innovative. They’ve only integrated a few things into their ships. Updating their ships would mean that they would have to completely change the design from the ground up and ships can take from five to fifty years to complete. Most of the ships that are flying right now have been around for centuries, only getting slight changes to their build and infrastructure every few decades,” Anna said.
“Who is this Jeeves?” Kim asked.
“I am Jeeves, Lo’kal’s personal AI, adapted for use to assist the Dwarven Master Smiths. My current personality module that you are now conversing with is a split off of my main system. This has been done to maintain security of this site,” a monotone voice said from around them.
“Damn, so you’ve got an AI down here?” Suzy shook her head.
“Jeeves runs the entire place, making sure that everything runs while I’m not here. It’s best if he does it as there’s less people to find out what’s going on,” Dave said.
They came to a stop outside a doorway marked A-3. Lights turned on as Dave stepped off of the cart and onto a catwalk beyond the doorway. The catwalk circled the entire massive area. Below it lay all manner of machines working away. It was a massive assembly line.
Thin metal shells moved along belts as sheets covered in runed magical coding were slotted in, as well as soul gems. There were three main sections: the body, tail fins, and nose cone.
“Meet our surface-to-space missiles.” Dave waved to the munitions factory.
“We reverse engineered the seeking systems from the Human and Jukal systems. The main body contains the soul gem, which acts as a power source and the payload. Basically, we took the same system that the Devil’s Crater aerial flyers have on their chest. Though in this case instead of just making Mana bombs, all of the power that is stored within the soul gem on impact will be instantaneously converted into rampant Mana. As for the engine—well, Dave came up with that,” Steve said.
“I came up with the idea and put together the theories behind it,” Dave said.
“They’re basically gravitational engines—one hell of a lot of thrust, really fast. Anyway, we took that information, processed it through a few hundred thousand simulations to find out the best models and we got these.” Steve waved at the end of the line, where the one-and-a-half-meter-long missiles were being stored in racks before being placed into storage crates on the back of an automated cart.
“If someone was to have a shield that was tuned to any of the Affinities, these would work against it,” Malsour said.
“Over here, we have bay A-2, which is where we’re carving out the basics of the fighters.” Dave walked along the catwalk through another door.
“While we have an idea of what they will become, everything is conjecture. We’ve put a halt to this program, focusing on the ships instead,” Malsour said.
“It’s much easier to work on something that’s larger than something small and miniaturized like these fighters,” Steve said.
“So, what are we going to use to fight them in space other than the missiles?” Josh asked.
“Well, that’s where A-1 comes in.” Dave walked out to the corridor again and jumped on the carts that had been following them.
“What’s in bay A-1?” Induca asked.
“The Ark. It can use the missiles you just saw. It also has the strongest Mana barrier and shields that we’ve ever made. Seven different fusion reactors to keep it producing energy and Mana constantly. Dwarven artillery pieces are built into the hull as secondary weapons, though these have been modified to use grand working rounds.”
“Grand working rounds—like those grand workings that Esamael’s people were using?” Dwayne asked.
“One and the same. We simplified it a little bit. We created a magical coding matrix, grew a soul gem around it and powered it up. We took the Dwarven artillery piece, coded it so that it could dissipate the heat build-up better, and now it can fire nearly three rounds per second on target. And with the grand working round, it doesn’t need to wait for a soul gem to charge it up—the power will be right there, ready to be used.” Steve grinned.
“Right now it’s in its first stages,” Dave said as the carts turned
to enter bay A-1. Inside, the lights were all on, showing off the warships berthed there. “As you can see, its exterior was cut out from rock. The interior is a complete soul gem construct; eventually it will eat up the stone that makes up the basic hull and also turn it into a soul gem construct. It will have everything encoded into the soul gem, from shields to control runes for the weapons. They’ll be sectioned off to do different things, but even if this thing gets badly wounded then the fusion plants can fuel the soul gems and make them regrow the armored plating that will cover it. That’s actually how the ship will be armored. It will grow it itself.” Dave smiled.
“So it’s going to be a soul gem created ship.” Anna looked down on the warship as they floated over to the two-story office that overlooked the ship. The carts used air runes to move across the space.
“Exactly. It will be able to store twenty times the power that Terra can; it will generate three times the power of our power station and it will be fast. The same gravity drives that we made for the missiles we encoded into the soul gem constructs, as well as teleportation runes. As long as there is a point to go to, we can teleport to it. Though doing it blind wouldn’t be the best bet seeing as we could accidentally teleport inside a planet, take a chunk out of it and kill ourselves in the process.” Dave shrugged.
They came to a stop at the office. Kol stood there, waiting for them.
“Dave, I knew that you would do great things, but this—I never thought that you’d come up with this.” Kol waved at the warship.
“It was a combined effort. Why do you think I have you handing out so many projects to all of the Dwarven smiths?” Dave laughed.
Kol rolled his eyes as they fell on Gurren. “You okay there, lad?” Kol asked, his worry clear.
“I’m fine, Gramps,” Gurren said with a smile, waving away his worry.
Kol’s hand landed on Gurren, squeezing him a bit. “Good to have you back.”
Gurren smiled at his grandfather as everyone spread out in the office, looking at the warship.
“So, you built a warship.” Cassie looked at it beyond the glass windows.
Time of Change (Emerilia Book 7) Page 36
